Written for Ashleigh's Monthly Competitions (November).


Finally, a discovery, and yours alone. You imagine glory; receiving the Newt Scamander Citation, talking in front of a crowd, smiling for their cameras' flashbulbs, seeing yourself in the Prophet. Because truth is, you like the attention, even if you publicly shy away from it. You like getting credit for things you've done.

It's just right to get credit for things you've done. And the plant was terrifying and beautiful—

Scarlet stems pulsing like human veins, pale pink leaves shaped like the pads of fingers, fruits like globules of blood ready to fall off the tendrils. You saved a cutting of the fleshy stem, and watched with interest as the part you sliced puckered up like a wound. You told yourself you'd bring it back to the school greenhouse so you can study it.

Except you didn't bring it to the school. You brought it home. There you extracted all you can from the plant; you powdered its vines, tossed the leaves in potions, and you even tasted the scarlet sap. You didn't want to, at first; too red for your taste.

But it won you over, and you squeezed some sap into a teaspoon. Just one little teaspoon is all, it's professional curiosity—


You're sweating. Your face feels like it's coated in aloe vera, only you don't feel cool, not by a long shot. You want to tear your robes off. But at the same time, something in you whispers that this, this is feeling alive. This is your heart pumping overtime, this is your veins throbbing with pressure. It's so hot, maybe running is a good idea—

The next morning, you wake up to find yourself in the forest south of your cottage. How did you get here? You vaguely remember a pounding in your ears and running. Lots of running.

How did you get those cuts on your shins? They look like scrapes from bushes. You find your way home, swearing the plant sap off. In your cottage, you set the small bottle on a bedside table and stare at it. The red swirling mass of it.


Later in the year, the other teachers greet you in passing, pretty standard behavior. Nobody notices anything different, no one lingers to ask you any more than is polite. You're mostly alone. It used to bother you. As a student, you wanted acceptance. You wanted them to think of you as they did Potter and Granger and Weasley. Who doesn't?

(You almost died for everyone, too.)

Solitude was a shard of glass in your lung. But now, you know how it feels to be a phoenix. With every dose of this sticky, sanguine liquid, you die. Die, quiet boy, shy boy, good-for-nothing boy. Die, never-a-hero. You've new life in teaspoons of fire.

How long, though, until you burn out? Until all that remains are embers?